Flying taxis could beat the Olympics to L.A.

Hunt is on for landing sites pending approval by the FAA, which could come next year.

- ROGER VINCENT

CLEO SINNOTT, 3, left, and her sister Maja, 2, from Sydney, tour a flying taxi at the Grove last year.

GENARO MOLINA Los Angeles Times

With electric air taxi services on the horizon, operators are already flying in to secure landing sites in Los Angeles.

Traffic-dodging aerial hops across big cities could happen as soon as next year, pending approval by the Federal Aviation Administration, and one of the country’s largest operators of airplane and helicopter landing sites is now on the hunt for L.A. locations that can handle the comings and goings of air taxis.

The vertiports, as they are called, might be built on open land next to an airport or university, or also on a parking garage or other building rooftop in downtown areas, said Kevin Cox, chief executive of VertiPorts by Atlantic.

The company wants to build the infrastructure needed to integrate air travel into congested urban centers as an alternative to stop-and-go car trips.

In its search for vertiports, the company is looking for busy surface routes "where it should take 30 minutes to get from point A to point B, but it takes an hour and a half," Cox said.

"Southern California area has got a lot of challenges in terms of congestion on the roadway," he said.